Six ways to leave a lover: evasive explanations and rationalizations when introducing internal social media

Purpose: Internal social media make it possible for all employees to participate in knowledge sharing and decision-making and to voice their opinions. Paradoxically, several studies have found that organizations are far from unlocking the full potential of internal social media. This paper seeks to explore and explain this gap further by adopting a sensemaking lens to managers’ understanding of a social intranet.
Method: A longitudinal case study of the process of introducing internal social media was conducted in a Danish municipality. Before, during and after the launch of the intranet, interviews with department heads and communication managers in the six different municipal departments were carried out to explore how they made sense of the purpose of internal social media.
Findings: Findings indicate that during the process of introducing and implementing internal social media, the department heads and managers’ narratives about the purpose of the intranet changed from being a matter of involving, engaging and hearing the voices of the employees to being a matter of providing a good channel for management to reach all employees.
Paper type: Research paper.